Theme

The lyrics lament the death of a female lover and the prospect of dying or committing suicide and rejoining her in the afterlife.

Phil Anselmo has credited numerous inspirations for the song. He stated in an interview in 1991 that the song was written about his good friends that had committed suicide. He also stated in a Ustream.tv live Q&A that "there was a friend who had died in NOLA and it had a real heavy impact within my group of friends. When I wrote the lyrics I did not want them to be too personal, because that can be cheesy. I also had to make sure that the lyrics would not take away from the song, because that was one of our best songs."[1]

Release and reception

"Cemetery Gates" was the second single released by the band off their Cowboys from Hell album. It received a large amount of air-play by rock stations, and has become one of Pantera's most popular songs. Guitar World magazine readers voted the song's solo the 35th greatest of all-time, which was Dimebag's 2nd highest ranking solo (after "Floods").[2] A live version of the song from Official Live: 101 Proof was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 40th Grammy Awards in 1998.